Budgets, relationships and ethics An in-house view

Ahead of our annual conference on Friday 26 October, leadership and governance consultant Ciarán Fenton previews his session for in-house lawyers.

Budgets, Relationships and Ethics: a micro-toolkit for in-house lawyers at a time of macro change – what on earth does that mean?

To me, ‘macro-change’, means something is changing in the sector, but there's a dispute as to whether it's disruption or not. If it’s not ‘disruption’, what is it and how should you respond?  Your ‘micro-toolkit’ is the behaviour and approaches relevant to your local context that you might consider adopting given the changing landscape.

Proactive not reactive budgeting

The traditional legal budgeting approach can often lead you into the more for less trap.  By turning that approach on its head, it is possible to change your annual legal budgeting process from being a reactive one to a proactive one, and telling, rather than asking, your organisation what it needs regarding legal counsel and process so that it can achieve its objectives.

What about relationships?

I have developed a relationship grid tool and I’ll show you how you can use this to manage your own relationships. The tool is based on a red, amber, green traffic light system – I’ll show you how to build your own grid and how you might address amber and red relationships.

Ethical decision making

You can become enablers of better and ethical decision-making without ‘owning’ ethics – you can do this by reframing your relationship with your organisation and by rethinking your purpose and the purpose of the legal function.

I’m really looking forward to seeing you and hearing your thoughts and questions on October 26

Ciarán Fenton is a leadership and governance consultant. Find out more at www.ciaranfenton.com. See the full programme for Leading Legal Execellence and book your place now.